China’s former agriculture minister Tang Renjian sentenced to death with reprieve for bribery

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SHENZHEN, China (Reuters) -Tang Renjian, China’s former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, was sentenced to death with reprieve for bribery at a court in Jilin province on Sunday, according to state-run news agency Xinhua.

Tang took bribes including cash and property worth over 268 million yuan ($37.6 million) in various positions held from 2007 to 2024, Xinhua said.

The Changchun Intermediate People’s Court suspended his death sentence for two years, noting he had confessed to his crimes, it added.

China’s Communist Party expelled Tang in November 2024, six months after he was placed under investigation by the anti-graft watchdog and removed from his post.

Tang’s investigation was unusually swift and followed similar investigations into defence minister Li Shangfu and his predecessor Wei Fenghe.

President Xi Jinping started a campaign of purges of China’s domestic security apparatus in 2020, seeking to ensure police, prosecutors and judges are “absolutely loyal, absolutely pure and absolutely reliable”.

Tang was governor of the western province of Gansu from 2017 to 2020 before being named minister of agriculture and rural affairs, according to official biographies.

In January, Xi said corruption is the biggest threat to China’s Communist Party and remains on the rise.

($1 = 7.1328 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by David Kirton, Editing by Louise Heavens and Kim Coghill)